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It’s busy out there.

Everywhere you go there are hives of busy activity. We are busy at work, at home, in every nook and dusty corner of our lives. We are completely dominated by busyness – constantly striving to do more, finish off the last and start the next activity.

It’s relentless and exhausting.

So when Christmas pops up on the radar again, it can be seen either as an opportunity to step outside our busy piece and celebrate with family and friends, or we can see it as a nuisance, something stopping us from achieving our goals and just an expensive inconvenience that gets in our way.

Bah Humbug!

“All work and no play makes Jack an extremely dull and uninteresting boy, who might find it hard to find and maintain any meaningful relationships, let alone experience any joy.”

Can you imagine what life would be like without time off, without any breathing space to explore our world with curiosity and wonder?

What would happen to our level of imagination and creativity?

Eeeeeeeek!!!

What 21st Century monster are we creating with this incessant drive, this misbelief that the only way to succeed is to sacrifice everything to the altar of doing?

Are we not human beings?

As a member of the Homo Sapiens Party, I’ve decided to time to take a stand and speak out for the rights of all brains, past and future to know what it is like to press pause, to reflect, and participate in everything this world has to offer beyond work.

One reason we have been so successful as a species is because we have a very strong and innate social intelligence. We bond to people, we form relationships and these matter. A lot.

Too much busyness stresses out our brain, and we enter survival mode. We start to lose our sense of perspective, everything starts to take on a greyish hue, there is little to laugh about let alone smile.

When I find myself leaning towards too much doing, too much busyness I find it helpful to refer back to Bronnie Ware’s book of the Top 5 Regrets Of The Dying:

  1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
  2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
  3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
  4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
  5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Nothing in the top five that says – Gee, I wish I’d not taken that holiday, or enjoyed that special time with my folks or witnessed our child’s first steps.

While it might be no bad thing to forego watching TV to read a book or swap a night doing the laundry for an evening course, denying ourselves time out to spend with family and friends especially at Christmas sends the message to others that we care more about ourselves and our ‘success’ more than we value our relationships.

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dAQ6_gXQy4&w=854&h=480]

Trust, respect, autonomy, impartiality, certainty and empathy are the TRAICE ® elements to social connection. How we relate to one another, how we spend time together, how we understand each other is what binds us and gives us our strength to succeed.

Sometimes our world appears to lack humanity. We don’t have to add to that by denying ourselves time to spend with those who mean the most.

Achieving success is rewarding and sure it’s nice to have that surge of dopamine. But success comes from the journey itself, the people we meet, the celebrations along the way, and the love and support of others.

Success is not buying that big expensive present – it’s about being together and feeling happy.

Are you too busy for Christmas?

Have you found yourself caught up in too much doing?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Dr Jenny Brockis

Dr Jenny Brockis is a medical practitioner and internationally board-certified lifestyle medicine physician, workplace health and wellbeing consultant, podcaster, keynote speaker and best-selling author. Her new book 'Thriving Mind: How to Cultivate a Good Life' (Wiley) is available online and at all good bookstores.

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